‘How long do we wait for Eddie?’ she wondered as George sulked silently and Sir William leafed through the paperwork on his desk. ‘What if he’s been here, found we weren’t back yet and left again?’
‘To go where? He will have waited, I’m sure. I really wouldn’t worry,’ Sir William went on without looking up. ‘If any of us is capable of outsmarting Lorimore’s employees and escaping his clutches, it is young Eddie. I imagine he’s on his way back here now.’
‘I wonder if he found anything,’ George said quietly.
‘I hope so,’ Sir William replied. ‘Otherwise I must confess I shall be at rather a loss as to what to do next, despite our brief visit to the foundry.’
‘So we just wait,’ Liz said.
They did not have to wait long. Eddie arrived a few minutes later. He was, Liz noticed, wearing a new jacket. At least, it was new to Eddie. To be honest it had seen better days, and it hung heavily to one side as if he had stuffed the pocket with weights.
‘Where have you been?’ she cried at once. ‘We were so worried.’
‘Had to walk back from Marylebone, didn’t I?’ He sat himself down on the desk, prompting Sir William into a rapid scramble to move papers and books before they disappeared under him.
‘You got a train?’ George asked in surprise.
‘No, a cab,’ Eddie replied, equally bemused. ‘But I only had enough money to get to Marylebone. I’m skint now, if anyone can sub me,’ he added hopefully.
‘I think,’ Sir William said, ‘that we should repair to the laboratory. There is room there for us all to sit down and compare notes as it were.’
While Liz had been to the British Museum several times before with her father, she had never found herself ‘backstage’ before. She was fascinated by the corridors and rooms hidden away out of public sight — the areas used for administration, for storage and for research.
Sir William’s laboratory was just down the corridor from his office. It was a surprisingly large room, dominated by a central wooden workbench. Tall cupboards lined the wall opposite the door, and the other walls were covered with shelves and cabinets full of glassware, equipment and specimens of all shapes and sizes. Liz could see what looked like bones on one shelf, strangely carved statues on another. Leaning up against one of the cupboards was what looked like a plunger for unblocking drains, though it was attached to the end of a telescopic rod made of shining silver metal.
There was a bench along one wall of the laboratory, and George, Liz and Eddie sat here while Sir William paced up and down in front of them.
‘We shall also,’ he said, ‘have less chance of being overheard down here. Now then, Eddie, tell us what you found.’
‘Nothing,’ Eddie said.
Sir William stopped mid-pace. ‘Nothing? Nothing at all?’
‘He was interrupted,’ George said. ‘He didn’t have much time.’
‘I had enough,’ Eddie said. ‘There was nothing in there. Well, nothing much.’ He reached awkwardly into the pocket of his new jacket and dragged out the stone. ‘Just this stone, which was really handy when I needed to get away I can tell you.’
Sir William frowned. ‘Where did you get that jacket?’ he asked. Immediately he shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. ‘No, don’t tell me. I’ve a feeling I don’t want to know. Some washing line or laundry basket between here and Marylebone, no doubt.’
Eddie opened his mouth to reply. But Sir William shook his head again and lifted the stone from his hands. He turned it over several times, examining it closely. ‘Curious,’ he muttered. ‘Very even shape, isn’t it?’
Liz watched him closely, aware that George and Eddie were also leaning forward in anticipation and interest.
‘Quite smooth too. Yet it hasn’t been machined or worked so far as I can see. Hmmm.’ Sir William weighed it in his hand, then put it down carefully on the workbench beside him.
‘What is it?’ Liz asked, with a mounting sense of excitement.
‘What?’ For a moment, he seemed not to realise what she was asking. Then he gave a short laugh. ‘Oh it’s probably just an old stone,’ he said. ‘Curious, but I imagine unremarkable. Though I should like to examine it properly when all this is over and done with and I finally have some time to myself.’ He sighed. ‘But just at the moment we have something of a problem. Either we were wrong about our evidence being inside the iguanodon, or we were too late and it has already been removed. Either way, the question is: what do we do now?’
He tapped his fingers on the workbench as he considered the problem. Liz glanced at Eddie and George, but neither of them seemed to have a clue what to do next either.
‘We must have missed something. Something in the diaries,’ Liz decided.
Sir William nodded thoughtfully. ‘I agree. Let me see that scrap of paper from the diary again, would you?’
George retrieved it from his wallet. ‘You have an idea?’
‘Just a notion. Almost certainly nothing, but you never know …’ Sir William took the small piece of paper and held it up to the light. ‘Well, we shall soon see,’ he murmured, and put it down beside Eddie’s stone on the workbench while he busied himself on the other side of the room.
‘What’s he up to now?’ Eddie wanted to know.
Liz shrugged. Sir William was hunting through a collection of bottles and jars. All three of them — Liz, Eddie and George — were so intent on what Sir William was doing that they failed to notice the movement from the other side of the laboratory.
Liz was the first to realise they were not alone. A figure had emerged from one of the tall cupboards where he must have been listening to their deliberations. He ran to the workbench where the precious scrap of paper from Sir Henry Glick’s diary lay. He was a young man, thin and gangly with slicked back dark hair.
Sir William turned at the sound of running feet and Liz’s cry of warning.
‘Berry? What are you doing, man?’ he demanded.
But Berry did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the workbench, and his hand shot out towards the paper.
George was already there, knocking the young man’s hand away and trying to grab hold of him. But Berry twisted out of George’s grip and took flight. He was across the laboratory and out of the door in a moment. Eddie was after him at once.
‘It’s all right!’ George shouted after Eddie. ‘He didn’t get it.’
But Eddie had already gone. George ran after them both, the door banging shut behind him.
‘He’s right,’ Sir William said to Liz in the stillness that followed. ‘We need to talk to Berry. Short of trying to see Lorimore himself, which I do not think would be a good idea, Berry may be the only lead we have left.’
George could see them both ahead of him as he ran. Berry glanced back frequently, the fear on his face easy to see. Eddie had his head down and was running for all he was worth. He was gaining on Berry, but not enough to catch him.
Berry slammed a door behind him and it crashed into Eddie, knocking him into the wall. But he was up again in an instant. George caught the door before it closed, and pelted after them.
They charged through the foyer, but Berry was already disappearing through the main doors. Eddie was close on his heels. George, out of breath, was still too far back. He tried to forget that he could hardly breathe, tried to ignore the blood drumming in his ears, and raced after them — out of the doors, down the steps.
The fog was swirling in the black night, thickening the darkness. A figure solidified out of the air in front of George, and he grabbed at it.
But it was Eddie.
‘He’s gone,’ Eddie said. ‘I lost him in the fog. He’s got away.’
Chapter 20
After losing himself in the fog, Garfield Berry had no idea what to do next. He had no wish to find Mr Blade again, and he could not return to work at the Museum. People would be looking for him — Blade wanting details of what he had discovered. Or Protheroe. They would look for him at home, and while he wasn’t there, his family was. Berry was not concerned about Sir William Protheroe confronting Lucy and the children. But Blade was a very different prospect. His men would be waiting for him.